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At the upcoming HBR Brasil Week on September 26-27 in São Paulo, Brazil, Alan Lewis, Managing Director at L.E.K. Consulting, will discuss a disciplined, methodical approach to helping business leaders grow their business with less investment and less risk by focusing on the myriad opportunities that are often hiding in plain sight, at the edge of their core business.

Instead of disrupting their industries, firms and companies should look for opportunities under their noses. More in The Economist’s Schumpeter column where co-authors Alan Lewis and Dan McKone from L.E.K. Consulting discuss Edge Strategy.

At the upcoming ONE National Conference 2017 on September 18-19 in Ottawa, Canada, Alan Lewis, Managing Director at L.E.K. Consulting, will discuss a disciplined, methodical approach to helping business leaders grow their business with less investment and less risk by focusing on the myriad opportunities that are often hiding in plain sight, at the edge of their core business.

Dan McKone and Alan Lewis, Managing Directors at L.E.K. Consulting and coauthors of Edge Strategy: A New Mindset for Profitable Growth, will discuss a disciplined, methodical approach to helping business leaders grow their business with less investment and less risk by focusing on the myriad opportunities that are often hiding in plain sight, at the edge of their core business. The authors researched nearly 600 companies worldwide across 60+ industry sectors. They found that only about 10% of these companies are successful at exploiting profit opportunities at the edge of their business.

British Airways is the latest full-service carrier to start charging for short-haul food. Is there anything to be gained for the passenger? L.E.K.’s Dan McKone, co-author of Edge Strategy: A New Mindset for Profitable Growth, comments on how buy-on-board policy is a good example of an Edge Strategy.

Today, companies in almost every industry are generating another valuable byproduct: data. Seemingly mundane accounting systems and customer databases now yield the raw materials that can be transformed into lucrative new services. But too few companies are capitalizing on the opportunity. Generating new revenue from byproducts of data — and also existing products and services — is an example of what we call an “edge opportunity.”

Imagine the president of your largest business unit slips into your office at the end of the day. As you know, margins are down and she’s sweating blood for every iota of market share. Now she has a proposal for a bold move that could take the company to the next level.

Using bagged lettuce in the grocery store as an example of a successful strategy, two researchers have written a book extolling the virtues of value-added services or products to expand one’s business model and grow sales. Alan Lewis, coauthor of Edge Strategy: A New Mindset for Profitable Growth, recently spoke to The Produce News and explained the idea behind the Edge Strategy concept and how grocery retailers, among others, can use the principle to drive their own success.

Here’s a piece of advice for hotel operators struggling with a slowdown in revenue growth: Rethink your definition of your guests’ journeys — namely the story of why the guest came to your doorstep and what their travel objective is. If you understand that story and how guests’ needs are not the same for everyone, you can start to create add-on services to better meet them.

Bayer’s shareholders are likely to end up disappointed by the company’s $66bn takeover of Monsanto, just as many of the 17.4m Brits who voted to leave the EU will probably end up disillusioned too. A recent study of 2,500 corporate takeovers, discussed in the Harvard Business Review by Alan Lewis and Dan McKone of LEK Consulting, found that more than 60 per cent of acquisitions destroyed shareholder value.

To health-conscious consumers, green lettuce is a basic food staple. But for food retailers slogging through pockets of grocery deflation and a low-growth economy, bags of lettuce, cut, washed and packaged as dinner portions, are emblematic of innovation to drive profit growth.

The hotel industry, which has enjoyed a five-year boom, is now girding for tougher times ahead. Already, the torrid growth in revenue per available hotel room is rapidly decelerating. Meanwhile, many properties that started construction during the boom years are coming online, further intensifying the competition. The best opportunity to increase revenue is to expand the array of add-on services and extra-price options available to customers.

After enjoying years of unprecedented growth, the hospitality industry now needs to prepare for tougher times ahead, say Alan Lewis and Dan McKone, managing directors at L.E.K. Consulting. Chains must move fast to keep revenue growing in the face of softening bookings. The signs of stress are evident as Marriott, Hilton and others escalate efforts to divert traffic from online travel agencies.

Edge Strategy co-author and L.E.K. Consulting Managing Director, Alan Lewis will deliver a presentation to the Enterprise Digital Transformation Council members on June 16, 2016 at the New York Marriott Downtown hotel.

Alan Lewis, co-author of Edge Strategy: A New Mindset for Profitable Growth and Managing Director at L.E.K. Consulting, has been named one of Consulting magazine’s “Top 25 Consultants in 2016” for Excellence in Retail.

INTHEBLACK, Australia’s most widely read monthly business magazine, reviews Edge Strategy: A New Mindset for Profitable Growth with examples from the book and an overview of the three different types of edge strategies.

There is something about strategy – both the word itself and the concept – that seems to make people believe they have to think big. In this article by Forbes, learn how the lessons in Edge Strategy provide readers with with a more pragmatic approach that could pay dividends.

Mint, India’s second largest business newspaper, interviews Edge Strategy authors Alan Lewis and Dan McKone to learn more about how companies can exploit existing assets and business relationships for additional profits.

As a complement to traditional upselling techniques, companies should increasingly be offering a menu of discrete products and services. These “enhancements” can be added to a core product, designed to satisfy a wider variety of customer needs, according to research in Edge Strategy: A New Mindset for Profitable Growth.

Gymnastics, like business, is a world of paradigms, in which patterns of expected behavior rule the day. That’s why a UCLA gymnast’s non-traditional floor exercise routine has become a social media sensation and also why Inc. has found a lesson for business leaders – derived from Edge Strategy: A New Mindset for Profitable Growth.

The Globe and Mail‘s “Managing Books” column profiles Alan Lewis and Dan McKone’s Edge Strategy and introduces readers to Product, Journey and Enterprise edges with an observation of historical population growth at the edges of different geographies that fostered trade growth.

Everyone is looking for an edge, or advantage, in business. How do we win? How do we get ahead? What is the angle that will drive our company’s success? But an edge is not just a term for advantage itself; it can also be the place where you can find that advantage. Read a special excerpt from Edge Strategy: A New Mindset for Profitable Growth in Harvard Business Review.

Fewer than 10 percent of companies make a disciplined effort to unlock new sources of profitable growth from their core business. Inc. takes a look at five steps for growth from Edge Strategy: A Mindset for Profitable Growth – the new book from L.E.K. Consulting’s Alan Lewis and Dan McKone – for executives to recognize and monetize their company’s overlooked assets.

Here’s a radical prescription for companies caught in excruciating trench warfare battling over tiny slivers of market share: Stop thinking so much about your products. That’s one of the key takeaways from in Edge Strategy: A New Mindset for Profitable Growth, a new book by L.E.K. Consulting’s Alan Lewis and Dan McKone.

Too many companies oscillate between opportunities that are too small — trying to squeeze more from their mature existing businesses — and too big — radical expansion, often through acquisition, into unfamiliar industries. Alan Lewis and Dan McKone’s forthcoming book —Edge Strategy: A New Mindset for Profitable Growth— explains how this is a choice between wasting a lot of effort and risking a lot of shareholder capital.

In 2014, companies around the world spent $3.5 trillion on mergers and acquisitions, and merger volume in 2015 is expected to be an all-time record. Insights from L.E.K. Consulting’s Alan Lewis and Dan McKone’s forthcoming book —Edge Strategy: A New Mindset for Profitable Growth— show why Proctor & Gamble and Best Buy profited from acquisitions while eBay and Pfizer did not.

Many manufacturing companies have long profited by selling what would otherwise be waste products of their factories. Oil companies sell the hydrogen created by oil refineries. Meat processors sell scraps for pet food. Insights from L.E.K. Consulting’s Alan Lewis and Dan McKone’s forthcoming book —Edge Strategy: A New Mindset for Profitable Growth— show companies in almost every industry have a valuable byproduct they are not capitalizing on: data.

Companies like Airbnb that operate in the sharing economy don’t own assets and don’t provide services directly to customers; they function as third-party clearinghouses, enabling property owners and individuals to monetize their unused assets and time. Read more in this Middle Market Growth feature by Edge Strategy authors Alan Lewis and Dan McKone.

Imagine if there was a way for a company to grow its profit line and create shareholder value by investing less money, taking less risk, seeing the benefits almost immediately and also making its customers happier in the process. Learn how in this Harvard Business Review feature by Edge Strategy authors Alan Lewis and Dan McKone.